For our wedding my best friend Tyler played the piano during the ceremony. It was so wonderful to have live music. He played so beautifully I wanted to create a LO that honored that. I used both Basic Grey June Bug and Basic Grey Marrakech for this layout. I cut out the border strip on the left side from some of the June Bug paper and then wrapped a piece of orange ribbon around the cutout. This gave it a little more dimension. I used more orange fiber around the photo and then as a bow on the top of the hidden journaling card.

I stamped under the matting for the photo to give a little more interest to the background cardstock. I triple matted the photo with each layer going in a different direction. I didn't want to hide to much of the papers so I felt this was a good way to show them off a little more

I added Basic Grey June Bug Glazed brads along the side of the middle matt for a little extra added dimension. Finally my favorite part of the lo is the title. I used Tim Holtz grunge board alphas from the nature pack. I inked them with a layer or Tim Holtz Broken China Distress Ink and then on the bottom half I inked another light layer of Tim Holtz Worn Lipstick Distress Ink. It gave the letters a very nice two tone look.

I had a lot of photos of Bruno that I wanted to scrap, but I didn't want to do a ton of layouts that were similar so I got the idea to make a mini album on a layout. I chose six of my favorite photos of the two of us for the layout. I used my absolute favorite for the cover and then I created a mini album with the rest. To make the mini album I cut card stock to mat all the photos. I left an extra half an inch on the side of the mat to bind the mini album. I used the Martha Stewart Bone Folder to score along the spine so the mini album would open easily. Then I covered the spine in ribbon and used 4 brads to hold the mini album together. All in all I am happy with the effect.

The scalloped border on this layout was stitched using a Bazzill Stitching border template. I did my best to make a square and line up the template so that it met end to end. Then I poked the holes and stitched using blue thread so the color would stand out. It took awhile but it was very worth it. The "stitching" between the squares of the quilt are actually drawn on with black pen. Next time I do that I will draw them on before I adhere everything else over the squares. It made it a little tricky.

I cut the large flourish using my Bosskut Gazelle. Then I added dots of stickles all over it to make is glimmer.

All the supplies for this layout (except the flourish, brads, and stickles) were from the July Mosh Posh kit.

This is a photo of my husband and during the first dance at our wedding. I got the title from the title of the song we danced to. We danced to "Rose of my Heart" by Johnny Cash. This has always been a special song for us so I wanted this page to be very special.

This layout was done for 2 different challenges on scrapbook.com . The first was a scraplift challenge. You have to scraplift a layout from the person who signs up in front of you. I drew the inspiration for this layout from 2 layouts by Just4myboys. The originals can be seen here and here. The originals were so beautiful that I really wanted to do them justice. I really though hard about what papers to use and what embellishments. I actually bought the roses just for this LO.

The second challenge was the weekly ABC challenge. This week's letters are NOP. N = Noun. There had to be a noun in the title. O = Opposite. The main colors had to be opposite colors on the color wheel. P = Punch. We had to use a punch somewhere on the layout. I had already planned to colors and the title of this when I saw the letters for this week. It just worked out that I was able to use the Fiskars effervesence border punch on one of the strips of paper.

Our wedding colors were bright blue, brown and bright orange. The colors of the Basic Grey Ambrosia line and the Marrakech line were the perfect shades to go with the colors of our wedding.

To cut out the flourishes and the title I used my Bosskut Gazelle. The chipboard flower in the corner are from the Basic Grey Marrakech line. The glazed brads are from the Basic Grey Ambrosia line. The roses are Prima. It is hard to tell in the photo,but I used Crystal Stickles on he tips of the flower petals and to accent the design of the orange and grey paper.

The Apartment

Here is one of my new pages that I did this week. This came together really quickly too. It is a page about a horrible apartment that we lived in when we were first married. It was so therapuetic to get all those angry feeling out in the journaling. I wanted the page to be very messy and distressed to reflect the state of the apartment. I used Basic Grey's Granola collection for the pp. I cut the leafy things and the ripped circles from pp in that line. Ialso used a lot of Tim Holtz's distress inks to to ink the papers. The journaling was on white cardstock and I used Vintage Photo ink to make it look old and worn. I also inked and tore the backgound papers and did some lacing.

This was a really fun layout to do and I am please with the result. I think it conveys my feeling about the apartment VERY clearly.

Card making.

So obviously my blog has gotten off to a slow start. It has been nearly 2 months since my first post. That being said I would like to get into something more substantive finally with my second post. On top of scrapbooking I love making cards. It seemed like a natural next step in paper crafting. I already had all the tools and supplies to start I just needed to take the time to do it.

I have been making cards now for about a year. Some of the first cards I made were for my dad and father in law last year for Father's day. Last night I was sitting and making their cards for this father's day and I was thinking about how much my card making style has evolved. I take less time thinking of a theme for a card then I used to and I focus more on the overall design. Also the designs of the cards have gotten (in my opinion) more complex and better. My cards are in no way works of art like many you see, but I am still pretty happy with how they look and my family enjoys getting these home made creations.

OK so after all that I finally am getting to why I posted. While I am very happy with how my designs are progressing I feel like the sentiments expressed in writing in my cards are lackluster and are even getting less original with time. Almost every birthday card has "Wishing you a very Happy Birthday" inside. Other occasions are equally as dull when it comes to writing inside the card. At the begining of my card making journey I always tried to find a cute saying or poem to write inside that fit the theme of my card, but as time went on I found this to be harder and harder to do without sounding like I copied it from inside another greeting card. So my question to you is ....What do you put in card and how do you come up with it? More and more lately I have tried to just write a more personal letter with personal sentiments, but sometimes it sounds a little contrived when I am just trying to wish someone a Happy Birthday.

First Blog Post!

I have decided to join the age of technology and start a blog!  This blog will be dedicated to my favorite hobby, scrapbooking.  It is one of my favorite past times.   I love all the things you can do with scrapbooks nowadays.  There are so many amazing tools, techniques, and products out there.  It is so much fun.  Thanks for reading.